8o Natural Salvation. 



we have a certain earnest of evidence that the higher in- 

 tellectual life of the future will physiologically redound 

 to a prolongation of individual life. Decline of the pro- 

 creative instinct follows naturally when the individual has 

 hopes of surviving ; and such decline and self-continence 

 react to prolong life ; yet centuries would scarcely sufiSce 

 to alter the deep-seated trend and course of our ancestry. 

 It is to our sciences — the superior intelligence of brain — 

 that we look for aid in prolonging our lives. Man has 

 already passed the point where he relies for his progress 

 on the tedious course of terrestrial nature unassisted. He 

 reaches forth a Promethean arm and, in the light of his stores 

 of knowledge, bends lower nature to his wishes. We ex- 

 pect to bring our sciences to act upon the cellular basis of 

 our lives and accomplish its regeneration. 



Under low nature, man would never surpass the purely 

 animal cycle of organic growth and decline ; of adoles- 

 cence, maturity, and old age. It is only by rising superior 

 to the lower course of nature that man has become some- 

 thing more than an animal order of life, recording experi- 

 ence in written language, kindling fire, smelting the 

 metals, impressing the lower animal orders into his serv- 

 ice, and even dominating the forces of nature, in order 

 to travel by steam and speak around the globe by electric- 

 ity. He has put lower nature in harness and now directs 

 natural law., 



In view of these grand victories, why should he despair 



